The Living Daylights – What Keeps You Breathing

The Living Daylights are a band that have been on my radar for a while as a group of guys that I should check out. The melodic punk-rock quartet, hailing from Lincoln, UK have just released their second LP “What Keeps You Breathing” through Worcester based, all round “good dudes” label Lockjaw Records. According to their Myspace page (old school), the guys have recently gone through a line up change with both the bassist and the vocalist parting ways with the band. Id be interested to listen to some of their older stuff to check out the difference between that and their new full length.

“What Keeps You Breathing” was released this April, and from the offset The Living Daylights launch into a pretty solid punk rock album, with catchy vocal lines and melodic, pop-punk riffs. To me, they sound like Iron Chic, crossed with touches of The Loved Ones and Crazy Arm. The Living Daylights have crafted a sound that blends melodic pop-punk with straight up punk rock, and they’ve done it well.

One of my favourite aspects of the album is the vocals. The delivery is melodic and consistantly spot-on throughout the whole album. This, crossed with the catchy lyrics create an excellent sing-a-long punk rock album; and in the South West with our Bangers and our Crazy Arm, we love our sing-a-long punk rock.

A couple of highlights for me were track 2, “Maybe Escapes”. The song has my favourite vocal hook of the album: “and if you could only hear me breathing”. Definitely my favourite track of the album, and will be excellent live I’m sure. Similarly track 6, “A Thousand Lights” rings with the line “A thousand lights will see us home tonight”; the whole chorus just urges you to sing with it. Track 8, “Sights and sounds” bursts in with a Polar Bear Club – esque riff and is another absolute banger. As a whole, the album flows really nicely and the band have given themselves a whole host of live material to pick from.

You can pick up the album from Lockjaw Records, or go catch them at a show. They are touring the UK soon alongside Great Cynics, who I’d also recommend checking out. So jump online and see if there’s a show near to you.

7/10

FFO: Iron Chic, The Loved Ones, Latterman, Bangers, Crazy Arm, Brothers, The Swellers, etc.

Review by Jake Dalton

WWW.LOCKJAWRECORDS.CO.UK                                                                               The Living Daylights & Great Cynics - 21st July - Live Bar, Truro - 8PM - £3